Well, of course it's about my life and stuff I think about. Just like a quadzillionbazillion other bloggers. I'm obsessed with God. I love beauty, enjoy absurdity, dance with despair, seek silence, and think everyone is goofy. Here's my world and what I think of it....

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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Two Percent

Today Phoenix tied a record for low humidity. Two percent. It has never gotten lower since the 1850's. That's good news, since I've lived in humid places and it is miserable.

The bad news is, it was also 110.

The good news is, I was working indoors.

The bad news is, the air conditioner was broken.

The good news is, I wasn't doing something really "physical" like hanging sheetrock.

The bad news is, I was painting... with a sprayer. 18 gallons of paint on the walls. Instant paint sauna.

The good news is, it was paying work, something I haven't had much of for almost two years now.

So, I get home. I shower, I'm reading email and the doorbell rings. My daughter calls me... There's someone here. I go upstairs. At the door is a young man with a satchel full of books. He starts to show me a book about Jesus, the King of Peace. He looks at our icons through the doorway and says, Oh, it looks like you are really into Jesus. We have a short conversation about Orthodoxy, which he has never heard of. He says, "I have these books about Jesus you might like" and starts to show me his satchel full of titles.

I say, you know what, I'd love to buy a book from you, but we're...

...and he says, "really broke, huh?" I say, yeah, really broke. I don't think I can buy a book today.

He says, well, the price says 19.95 but we're giving them away for a donation of ten dollars.

I look at the young man. I know what he's doing. I almost did a summer gig back in 1974 selling Bibles door to door to make money for college. It was 14-16 hour days, 6 days a week and a crappy sales rate... it was purely a numbers game. The more rejections you got, the more sales you made. I didn't do it. He is. In Arizona. In 110 and two percent humidity.

I ask him what I usually ask kids who are selling candy or books or magazines door to door, "so do they keep track of how many books and how much money you come home with at night, and you get what, two bucks for selling me this book?" He says what they always say, Well, yeah.

I do to him what I do with all the other kids... I dig in my pocket and hand him ten dollars, and I hand the book back to him. I say, keep the book and put the ten in your pocket and don't tell them about it. He looks at me wide eyed. Really? Ummm...

Yeah, really. Keep it.

He says, THANK YOU, sir... but...

I say, keep it. You're a hard working young man. God bless you and good luck. As he walks backward down the sidewalk he stammers, Thank you.... Thank you sir, thank you....

Its always a good day when you can make a kid's day for only ten bucks.

I did a summer like that in New Mexico, and it's a novel thing for an Ohio boy. I didn't sweat; I just had salt chafing in my armpits at the end of the day. It's 80 degrees with 60 percent humidity here now, at sundown, and frankly, I'd take 100 at 2% any day.

As for the 10 clams, it's 10 clams. Not much to most of us, but a lot to many. Reminds me of the woman at the Temple who dropped in her whole fortune, which was a pittance. And I guess we all know what He said 'bout that.